Bumblings, Blunderings and Bah-humbugs
by ravenromance27
Summary: Collection of stories from the world of Bleach, from the introspective to the innocent to just plain weird. Read at your own peril.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors**** Note:** First of all, lets get the painful fact out of the way-No, I don't, can't and probably wouldn't own BLEACH. Like ever. There, I said it. Deal with my angst. Now for the fun part. I haven't written a word in two months. I don't really know why and right now, I'm still thinking about it. But this story has been hanging around my files, mocking me. I needed to get it out of my head ( and my computer space) and allow it to bother others. Its the only way I could get my peace back so please be merciful. I beg of you.

Added Note: I seriously have no idea why I wrote this, only that I felt compelled to and fair warning, there are others lurking around my head just like it. I apologize in advance.

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**DEFINITIONS**

**NORMAL**

Kurosakis do not make things easier for those around them. Suffice to say, the entire family makes it a point of honor NOT to make things anywhere near the word easy for those unfortunate enough to be around them.

They don't like the easy way or the logical way. They want their way and that's that. What they do like to do is come up against a standard and shatter, stomp and scar it beyond recognition until it becomes a redefined version of what they think as right.

Every single member of the Kurosaki family is steadfast in their belief that they are normal in every way that matters. What's even more annoying is that when push comes to shove, they would only grudgingly accept and insist that there is nothing extraordinary about them except for one thing. They go about their lives believing for the most part that they are just like everyone else except for the ghosts are part and parcel of their household. Never mind the fact that all of them could sense apparitions, three-quarters of them can see ghosts, two of them sometimes moon-lights as Death Gods and one of them was never really completely human to begin with.

Never mind that the only thing they ever could be is nothing farther than normal and that they make it a regular thing to make people that know them and some who don't to drop their jaw and curse a blue streak of disbelief. Everyone that had ever met them, knew about them or heard about them all agreed that the Kurosakis will never be normal expect in one glaringly obvious aspect-they wouldn't really know what the hell freaking normal is if it came up to them with a nuclear bomb and an invitation engraved in a ten ton slab of stone.

**POTENTIALS**

Now you have to understand, a Kurosaki under normal circumstances is an above average student with an exceptional amount of potential. The twins regularly place in the top fifteen percentile of their class and they do this on top of their household responsibilities and the club activities. Ichigo usually scores well in all of his classes and barring his spate of absences whenever a "thing" came up, he would've fared even better in his high school ranking.

However, examining and watching the Kurosaki's true potential unfold whenever circumstances would allow for it is not really something for the faint of heart.

A Kurosaki with a goal in mind is akin to a runaway freight train going 500 miles an hour or a room locked full of children clinically diagnosed with ADHD and ADD right after they've feed nothing but sugar.

A Kurosaki hell bent on getting something they want is like a fighter plane, loaded with trained soldiers fully equipped with every known weapon in an army's arsenal in their trigger happy fingers.

A Kurosaki on the warpath to avenge a slight or an implied threat would be akin to trying to change the way a tsunami before it hits the shore or pacifying a hurricane or neutralizing a natural disaster—like two volcanoes erupting at the same time at roughly less than 100-meters apart.

A Kurosaki fighting for someone they love is like waging a war with the very personification of the wrath of god-make that a couple of cranky, vindictive gods that could give remedial lessons to Nemesis herself and knowing that the fight won't ever end until he is satisfied and the enemy has been stomped straight down into the very bowels of the Underworld itself.

**FIGHTS ET AL…**

When the eldest Kurosaki trained to stop the execution of one Kuchiki Rukia he didn't waste time. He was to say the least, ruthlessly efficient. He regained his Shinigami powers in 3 days, achieved a pretty good grasp of his shikai by the 5th day and by the end of the tenth day was a considerably better fighter than any of the lowest seated officer of the Gotei 13. And he of course felt the need to over achieve, thus he did the unthinkable and he achieved bankai in 3 days—a feat only accomplished once by one gifted mad genius and while he was at it nearly caused the collapse of the soul society.

If that wasn't enough of an anomaly, once he set foot in Seiretei, his not so inconsiderable reiryouko spiked to the hilt and showed that what he indeed had been showing thus far had been energy that was curiously enough, stifled by his earthly shell. Once freed from that particularly annoying and inconvenient part, he had to effing sledgehammer his way unto the energy scale. The entire Research and Development Bureau had to invent a scale just for his family alone and those rare few who are like them. It didn't make the Bureau feel any better when they realized that their impromptu scale had to accommodate the likes of Zaraki Kenpachi as well. Now given that this was Ichigo and he is a Kurosaki, and his father was, after all a former captain of the Gotei 13, the matter of having enough spiritual strength could be considered a trifling concern.

**Of course.**

He came, he destroyed, and he pissed off a lot of powerful people. He gained the admiration, friendship and mad obsession of a few even more powerful people and he cheekily went his merry way, all while still a living human. These things alone should've given anyone pause-or at least made them consider an extended stay in an asylum. Of course when you point these things out to the idiot in question, his response would be short, succinct and extremely in true Kurosaki tradition-annoying. He simply and straightforwardly stated, without fanfare or undue humility that it wasn't that much of a big deal.

**Right.**

When the world was threatened by a megalomaniac with a grduge and a weird-ass, science fiction nightmare of a battery on steroids running inside of him, he accepted the fact that he would fight with the same nonchalance as when the lunch lady in school that Tuesdays would be curry-bread day

So, he went through hell, literally of course, took a side-trip through 20,000 man-hours of training in a convenient oubliette in the midst of nowhere with his old man chained up like ritual sacrifice and came back to whipped the would-be tyrant flat on his presumptive, screaming, ever loving ass. Along the way he lost his powers but like the perpetual pain in the ass that he was, he told the people that owed him a debt they could not hope to repay that a simple thank you would do and left it at that.

When his Shinigami-daiko sempai waltzed in and took a swipe at erasing him from the minds his friends and family's life he of course, gritted his teeth, achieved the impossible act of re-acquiring his immense power and then some. And he did it all in true Ichigo fashion and with the signature Kurosaki panache. He took all that they had to teach him and turned it upside down on its head. He brought his Fullbring to its fullest potential, merged it with his own immense Soul Reaper powers and created something monstrously unusual. Pissant know-it-all that he was, he took it all in his stride and dealt with the matter at hand with his usual brash efficiency. He confronted the guy who played him like a doll while intending to take all that he had and beat the man within an inch of his not-so- immortal life. With the man dead as a doornail and his grudge properly addressed, any other man would be content to leave it at that.

**Sure.**

But this was Ichigo and he and normal weren't even casual acquaintances most of the time. Fate would have it, that normal and Ichigo never meet. Or even appear on the same plane, planet or dimension. The idiot promptly marched himself to Soul Society to get the older Shinigami-daiko asshole's body-the same asswipe that played Jedi mind tricks on his friends and family and gave him a bad case of heebie-jeebies with amnesia and declared that he wanted the man to be given a proper burial saying only in his defense that the man was human and that he operated on the notion that _**"no harm, no foul."**_

**If only.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors**** Note:** I did warn you there were others...

* * *

**LEGAGY**

When Urahara was tasked to train the twins, he was quite excited. He decided that since this time around there was no sense of urgency or emergency involved, he would start slow and with the basics. The eldest twin had always been in possession of excellent reiatsu control. The youngest was slowly coming into her own powers since she was the slowest to attain a finer control necessary to call upon her powers. He was told that the youngest twin could only sense the spirits but if she came in contact with one with a strong enough reiryoku or a compatibility with her wavelength she could see quite well enough.

Kidou training would be perfect. It would accomplish the task of honing and directing the twins' wavelength so that they could put their impressive reiatsu to good use. He would build their strengths up steadily and help them gain full mastery of their gifts. No more rushing like their older brother. He wanted to see what a Kurosaki could accomplish when there wasn't a proverbial gun held against their unusual heads.

He was very excited to meet with such raw talents, unsullied and untested. He should've known better. He should've started with baby steps-on this case-a piece of paper and colored pens. Or maybe even puppets. He never should've expected to watch them fail and then teach them what was needed afterwards. Kurosaki's do not fail. They conquer. They overcome. They find expectations to obliterate.

Kurosaki Karin was a lethal force confined in a small, complex package. Ichigo was like a force of nature. You had nothing else going for you but to accept it and get the hell out of the way. That was it. And in some weird way, Ichigo's monstrous strength was easier to see, appreciate and dodge from.

His sisters were on some scale-a whole lot scarier.

Kurosaki Yuzu couldn't see ghosts clearly enough to be bothered by them. But she did emit the same, though subdued aura that leaked out of her brother like the stinking Nile. When given proper instructions for the first time, she finally harnessed the inert reiatsu inside her. She, like her twin, took to Kidou like duck to water much to the chagrin of her brother who couldn't control his own massive energy if it bombed him.

One lesson-a single instruction and a five-minute demonstration was all it took for the twins to grasp what students in the Academy needed for half a year. A few hours to memorize all the basic incantations for the lowest to the high 90's. A few hours of enduring snickers from Yuzu and mutters and curses from Karin over 'dumb, annoying, unrelatable words and idiots who think of rhymes that doesn't make sense' and she declared that she would rather actually see if she could do them rather than just read about the theory. All throughout her harangue, her twin smiled and giggled and agreed but nevertheless studied with good grace and patience. Her twin was all for it, provided Karin did it first. And so she did.

When he told her to concentrate on calling up her reiatsu and allowing it to flood her being until she could feel it down to her fingertips, he thought the words might be too vague. He forgot to read Youichi's memo that stated that the dark haired twin started fighting Hollows months before Ichigo lost his powers using nothing more than her reiatsu filled soccer ball.

And so when Karin stood up and then closed her eyes stilling all movements and minute twitches of her body he absently noted the fact and continued to simply watch. When she became still as a statue, he took a deep breath. When her reiatsu flared out of her in a visible wave and then coalesced around her like a bright outline he took a prudent step should've taken one look and started running. But he was a curious bastard and so he pressed on.

Karin then pointed at the target he placed on one of the craggy outcrop of rocks that littered the training ground. He knows she had the reiatsu to do the job, but he didn't really expect her to understand what he meant with such a simplistic explanation.

He had never been so glad to be proven wrong. The eldest twin didn't just become focused. Not just quiet and unmoving-but rather eerily, compellingly still. She stood, arms on her side, feet apart and braced. She looked at a point in the distance, took one deep breath and closed her eyes. It was all the warning she gave him. When she opened her eyes next and expelled her breath all hell broke loose.

Her eyes gave it away, those unusual purple-grey eyes that she shared with no one else in her family-those same orbs that suddenly shimmered and became illuminated in a startling shade of brilliant gold unlike her brother or her father before her. While she expelled her breath, she raised her right hand, extended two fingers and he couldn't help but think they looked especially delicate and dainty considering what a tomboy the eldest twin was.

Her thin lips parted and he waited for her husky voice to start the incantation. What he got was her voice simply saying the name of the spell in a tone of voice that was an eerie reminder of Kuchiki Byakuya's cool clipped tones.

_**Hadou No. 4: Byakurai **_

An arc of pure white energy shot of her fingertips and fired straight into the target. The shot obliterated the five foot rock into rubble. But she mustve slighty changed her stance at the very last second because her shot landed on the very edge of the target, making her lose her mark.

He expected her to curse and complain-as a soccer player he would've expected a better aim-but she didn't say a word. Even when her twin came up to her and laid a hand on her shoulder her eyes still looked on at the target. A heartbeat and then another, she gave out a shuddering breath and then finally tore her eyes away from the wreckage.

"Sorry..."

"Karin-chan? Are you ok? That was brilliant! That was amazing!"

"Hmm...we need to work on her aim."

"No you don't…"

Yuroichi sauntered into the training fields with a wicked smirk on her lips and a gleam in her eyes that made Urahara's hair stand of end.

"She missed the mark-"

"She didn't miss anything. She changed the trajectory. She didn't want to hit that."

"That?"

As if suddenly summoned small brown bird emerged from the smoke, clearly disgruntled but unharmed.

"She sensed it."

"What?"

"Right at the moment she was about to fire _Byakurai_. She had to change the angle of her shot at the split second a life force registered across her senses. Ichigo-boy's sister is even more attuned to life-forces and energies than anyone else in this place."

"I guess I should be thankful she is…"

"You should be thankful she's bare handed."

"What-? Oh…"

The realization that Karin could use her reiatsu effectively without a weapon was no surprise. The fact that she could manage a destructive force without a zanpakuto was. Realizing that she could pack a punch in a something as mundane as a soccer ball wasn't reassuring. It certainly didn't reassure Urahara when Yuroichi continued to smirk at him. The feeling didn't get any better when he saw the grin painted on the twin's idiotic father.

When Yuzu tried Kidou she did it with remarkable flair-brilliantly efficient if not with the same deadly force and accuracy as her sister. But it came with the added bonus of being naturally attuned towards defensive and healing kidou. Her barriers were like reinforced walls of steel-the kind of shield that would take a kidou spell beyond the high 90's to even scratch. Any weaker and the barrier would-if it could-spit your spell back at you.

When Karin and Yuzu were trained to achieve their zanpakutou it was expected they would wield a powerful weapon. Urahara should really have learned by now. When asked to meditate to attempt and call forth their zanpakutou, oddly enough it was Yuzu who immediately managed to manifest a pair of slim kodachi's. They fit the defensive personality of the youngest twin who did not seek to fight-only defend herself if called on.

Yuzu's zanpakutou looked like a stylized pink kogai kanzashi when in their sealed form. The slim piece was covered by of all things small strawberry design and an unusual cluster of small amber beads that looked like the sun on one end with a delicate spray of amber beads cascading from beneath the other. She took to the habit of wearing it on her hair and it certainly proved to be a distracting reminder to their older brother that they were essentially a family of living Death Gods. The irony wasn't lost to everyone but those that knew them. The twelfth division captain called them interesting speciments, Byakuya considered their very natures an affront to discipline and Zaraki issued challenges to be met the moment they plop down and die.

The eldest twin however put even her own family's impressive legacy of producing extremely strong swords to shame. With Engetsu and Zangetsu, they expected a similar weapon and Yuzu's twin blades seem to indicate at least some measure of propensity towards swords that reflect their owner's desires and level of strength. They expected everything from a katana the length of a meter stick to a meat cleaver that could decapitate a whale.

But even within their own family the Kurosaki's manage to defy their own odds. Karin's zanpakutou shouldn't even be called a weapon. It's an arsenal. Or to be more correct, her sealed shikai wasn't even a singular blade but a host of items that defies all but the most analytic of minds.

What she had managed to manifest wasn't a single weapon at all but a whole slew of them including her very own mascot. In their sealed forms, Karin's zanpakuto was a simply a single ear-craft earring from which dangled a silver fang, two slim bracelets and a small , a small snow white pup with gleaming gold eyes.

Unsealed, they manifested into a scythe that could then be reworked into two separate weapons—a chained sickle and a wakizashi. The pup actually grows into a full sized wolf. Urahara and Yuroichi speculates that when in Bankai, Kurosaki Karin would probably have a pack of wolves at her command-faster than the wind and shoots white laser like flames when they howl. Truly, a more lethal Kurosaki had never been born.

The Kurosaki's sibling are a walking strike team-the complete unit intended for offense, defense and medical treatment. Yuroichi have found the perfect 3-man cell for any job—including but not limited to world domination and end of the world scenarios.


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors Note:**

I have always wondered why fictions featuring Karin always figured her as a screaming, foul-mouthed shrew. She never displayed out rightly any violent tendencies with the clear exception of her reaction to her father's near constant display of deliberate idiocy. More's to the point she seems like a good cross between Hitsugaya's maturity and innate need for privacy and Byakuya's cool impersonal indifference. She certainly had to be something quite different from a shrew if boys her age hang out with her. I don't know of any boy who would befriend a girl and compete with her in sports if the girl in question was a raving, whining baby. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Add: I know this is kinda late and that story has been settled with the whole Fullbring Arc. But when I wrote this, it was the period when he just lost his powers and I figured this was how someone like Karin would react.

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**SIBLING LOVE**

Ichi-nii is our one constant. It didn't matter whatever calamity befell us or what other weirdness pervaded our world—as long as HE was there—we would be safe, secure and happy. Ichi-nii is strength and honor personified—what a real man is supposed to be. What any man should aspire to be. He is our loud, often times moody and mouthy shield against school yard bullies and our beacon against the pervading darkness that comes creeping around at all hours of the day—dangers only we could see and feel and understand. He is also warmth and acceptance and sanctuary for the loneliness that sometimes comes when the face that stares back at us from the mirror reminds us too strongly of what we have lost. Ichi-nii is our Polaris-our True North—the guidepost upon which every male of our acquaintance—even our father—and every other male that came in our lives since was measured against.

Ichi-nii stood sentinel against the crippling loneliness of nights after our mother died. Nights haunted by nightmares too real to be imagined and the longed for tears that couldn't and wouldn't come quickly enough to offer succor. Ichi-nii who stood and bestowed smiles of encouragement for a little sister that struggled to grow up quickly enough to cook and clean for a shattered family and to restore some semblance of normalcy to their lives. He who watched as another sister struggled with powers that plagued her days and nights—making every waking moment into a waking nightmare that never ceased until her young heart hardened to the pitiful wailings of the dead and departed—never really hearing the one voice that would've made it worth everything else. Ichi-nii is our strength. Our insurance against that has proven time and again to be unreliable and untenable.

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**SELFISHNESS**

_"Tell whoever's in charge to post someone more competent in this town. Tell them there are no more Kurosaki's to come and fight their wars and do their jobs for them."_

_"Kurosaki-san-"_

_"Tell them I will do what I can to protect my town but that's all that i will do. The next Shinigami that comes here better pull their weight or the next time I come hunting I will hunt Hollows and the Shinigamis along with them."_

_"Kurosaki-san-"_

_Goodbye you for bringing him home._

Six months...that's long it has been since I first took over the perils of Hollow hunting-a job that has been until half a year ago, something my brother did with his usual aplomb and selflessness. A job that he didn't choose but he undertook anyway, with barely any complaint and without any sign of regret.

_**But no more.**_

Now he is simply another high school student and I thank every single one of those days. While I do not relish the dangers and certainly, to some extent, the lies I have had to weave throughout to keep my new part-time job a secret, it is a task I am all too happy to take over for him.

It may be selfish and it may have been wrong but I knew in my heart that nothing they could say would make me give up even a smidgeon of my reiryouko to use in reviving my brother's now-dormant powers. They couldn't guilt me, coerce me or force me to do it. No one could do that. Not even Ichi-nii himself. And I knew he would never ask.

It wasn't that I was afraid it wouldn't work and the resulting disappointment would further cause my brother to sink into an even deeper level of despair. On some degree I was too afraid to analyze I knew the damned Sandal-Hat dude could do it. He had the eyes of a mad genius. I knew in my gut he wouldn't have proposed such a hypothetical situation if it had no chance of working.

I was afraid that it would work too well and I would have to stand by and watch him suffer all over again. I couldn't let him do it. I couldn't risk that our brother would one day fight again and be lost once more. I couldn't risk Yuzu losing the one male in her life she could rely on. I couldn't risk having both our hearts broken and our spirits scarred again. If I could do that by being selfish then I'm all for being one.

I would be selfish but I would keep him where we could care for him. _Where I could protect him_. Where we could watch him live and not dread that one day Yuzu and I would wake up in a world that no longer had him in it because he died in a place we couldn't even go to, fighting a monster my twin couldn't even see, championing a cause none of us could ever understand.

Six months is nothing compared to fifteen years of selfless battles and constant struggle's. _Of endless fighting and safeguarding and protecting_. My brother has earned his rest. He has earned the right to be free from responsibilities he never asked for and free from expectations no child, let alone a fifteen year old should bear. Certainly he deserves to be free to dream and live a life without fear.

But if there is a down-side to the relief and joy I feel for the freedom and respite he has gained it is in the emptiness I see in his gaze. The pain that shimmers always just below the surface of his normally too intense eyes. I know my brother's in pain. I live through it every time our eyes would meet and I steel myself towards the pain.

My brother's eyes always gave him away. It was his eyes that had always been his most honest features-his sole vulnerable spot. They mirrored and reflected truth like twin orbs of glass. His words never bothered me and his rough, brusque nature assured me on many levels that my brother is human-mortal like everyone else-even if he was born with powers unlike any other. This flaw—if it could be called that—makes him more real—approachable—vulnerable in my eyes. He is a real person, not some figment of our imagination, not a projection of our fears.

My brother is in pain...though he hides it well enough from Yuzu and the rest of the world, we two had come to some bizarre understanding. Born from all the times I've kept his Shinigami life an open and unspoken secret between us, and likewise, we keep my taking over and his frustration the same way. There it was between us but it was never spoken aloud, never discussed.

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**MORTAL**

Yuzu is the only being in our oddball household aside from my insane crackpot of a dad-that habitually asks for physical demonstration of love. We each have gotten used to the fact and made peace with the fact that she would, at least once a day, require a hug or a hand or even a snuggle.

My father had to be beaten to a pulp to learn that what Yuzu wanted was a simply touch-not a smothering choke-hold I, being Yuzu's other half grew up with the fact that she welcomed the physical proof of love and affection and acquiesced early in life. We shared a small cramped tummy for nine months wrapped in each other's arms-the space notwithstanding; so I see no point in denying her now.

Ichi-nii also learned that early in life, though truth be told, I never knew a time when he denied Yuzu and by extension me, physical proof of his affections for us.

**Hard...**

**Warm...**

**Unyielding...**

**Polished marble that exuded heat and life...**

That is what he normally feels like...when Yuzu came up to him with one of her usual silent, smiling requests for physical affection, Ichi-nii, like any member of my family, becomes a mass of blushing helpless pile of time came for her daily hugs I allowed her to pull me with her, an act I usually resisted with a scoff and an epic battle that she inevitably wins.

I used to indulge Yuzu's group hug only during special occasions. But not now, not after Ichi-nii came back with shadows in his eyes and emptiness in his soul. But not this time. This time, I wanted to feel him-like I used to when he would sleep between us when nightmares came to plague us as toddlers.

Hugging Ichi-nii was like hugging living marble. There was corded strength in him-like his entire body was meant to be something beyond simple physiological parts of a whole. He seemed to possess the physique of a warrior or a god. _**Hard, strong, unyielding**_.

At the height of his power, I felt his spiritual force too keenly and i kept our touches to a minimum. It felt too much like touching a live electrical wire and it pulled at my senses far too much. _**But not now**_. I've never had to be careful around him before, knowing full well whatever strength I had wouldn't even faze him but now, now I fear that I might hurt him some way. For the first time ever, Ichi-nii felt frighteningly human. Whereas once upon a time hugging Ichi-nii felt very much like embracing a raging tornado, now he feels like he could break in our embrace.

He feels more human to me now than he ever had since I can remember. I can finally feel him-naked but for skin, muscle and bones. Gone from his touch was that piercing, scorching heat of his power. Gone was the aura that made hugging him so intensely uncomfortable for my heightened senses. And for the first time since I've known him he feels fragile in my arms. My brother finally feels _**mortal**_ now.


End file.
